I must have not been paying attention, but back in Oct 2017, Capital City Real Estate broke ground on Peninsula 88 and the other day I saw it rising up above the Anacostia. The rendering for the project (below), located on Buzzard Point just east of the old Coast Guard HQ (aka the Transpoint Building) shows it right next a new section of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, and that IS the plan... someday, but they're not going to build any as part of this project because that's on NPS land.

Anyway, when the Transpoint Building - to be called Riverpoint - is finished, it WILL include about 300 feet of new trail and a pad for a CaBi station. But the trail won't connect to anything on either side.

Work on Riverpoint began last summer. The trail (visible above) will have two parts, an asphalt "active" trail and a parallel, brick "passive" one,with the two separated by planters. Next to it will be seating, public art, and educational signs. Both trails are 10 feet wide. But it appears that they will not construct the cycletrack on T, only connect to it, and will not build the trail across NPS property. The rendering above even shows it stopping suddenly.

The 10-foot wide cycletrack will be on 2nd Street, for one block from V Street to the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. There is will connect to the planned cycletrack that will someday go all the way to P (I think), but again, it dosen't seem to be part of this

In addition the building will have 168 long-term bicycle parking spaces, as well as lockers and changing and shower facilities.An additional 41 short-term bicycle parking spaces will be provided as part of the Project on the streets and sidewalks surrounding the Project. The bicycle parking room will also have a fix-it station and 10 tandem bicycle parking spaces (which are just longer spaces for longer bikes).

In the same area, work on 1900 Half Street to the north and east of Riverpoint, began in September. 1900 Half Street will include terraces that front on the 750+ feet of trail built as part of the development. The trail here will also feature two parallel paths – a 14-foot bike path adjacent to the building and a ten-foot pedestrian path at the River’s edge, separated by a 10-foot landscape buffer, but the pedestrian path will only be on the north end. Developers offered to continue to the south to the Earth Conservation Corps property but that does not appear in the plans. The trail will connect to the future trail to the north, to T Street and to Half Street on the south side of the building.

The bike path will be 1.5 feet above the 100-year flood elevation and the pedestrian path a foot lower.

They once planned to build a 1-block cycletrack on T Street, but now it looks like there will just be a sharrow. That's not a big deal since the road won't get much traffic as it only gives access to the garage, loading dock and trail. The garage will have 32 bicycle parking spaces for residents.

Riverpoint and 1900 Half will complete in 2020 and Peninsula 88 in 2019. So the Johnny Cash trail - built one piece at a time - continues its long, slow, half century long journey to completion; but we'll need NPS to complete it's section between Riverpoint and 1900 Half to really make these pieces worth anything.

Last summer, VDOT announced that they were planning to expand the 495 Express Lanes to the American Legion Bridge, where they would eventually connect to one Maryland is proposing. Yesterday they announced a deal to do so. Since the summer they've been working on the Environmental Assessment, which should be ready soon according to the schedule laid out in June. Setting aside the wisdom of expanding the Beltway, what opportunities could such a project create for cyclists?

VDOT is coordinating with Maryland, which is looking at a variety of design options for its portion of I-495 and the American Legion Bridge.

which is not particularly confidence building.

But despite the ALB which Virginia can punt to Maryland, there are quite a few bike facilities in the Fairfax County Bike Plan for this area, and the project should address many if not all of them. I mean it might not, but it should. The project area extends along 495 from Dolley Madison Blvd/123 to the ALB and along the Dulles Toll/Access Road from Spring Hill Road outside the Beltway to Dolley Madison inside of it. If they aren't going to do these things in conjunction with this major project, when will they.

On the north side, there are four facilities in the bike plan that pass through the study area.

Most notable is the shared-use path the commenter asked about. This project should build the path with in the project area and all the way along the George Washington Parkway at least to Dead Run, where the NPS study proposed a crossing of the Parkway connecting to Heather Brook Drive. That's not in the bike plan, but it should be. If not, then it should be extended to Turkey Run Park. In the short term, so that it's not a dead-end, it could pass under the bridge to Live Oak Drive creating a new critical connection. That's not explicitly in the bike plan but should be. The trail could replace the current Potomac Heritage Trail in the area.

Fairfax County Bike Plan map for north 495

The bike plan also puts sharrows on Balls Hill and Live Oak Drive north of Georgetown Pike (we can do better, especially if the Live Oaks Drive Bridge needs to be rebuilt); bike lanes on Balls Hill south of the Pike; and a striped shoulder on Old Dominion Drive. Again we can do better if the Old Dominin Drive Bridge is replaced. [Old Dominion Drive is the ROW of the old W&OD railroad, BTW]

Fairfax County Bike Plan map for Tysons area

In the Tysons area, the projects from the bike plan area much bigger. There's a pair of bridges over the Beltway at Jones Branch Road - but that's already under construction (the new bridge/road will include on-street bike lanes in each direction and an 8- to 12-foot-wide lighted sidewalks)

There's also a shared use path along Dolley Madison and a shared use path from Freddie Mac Center, over the Dulles Toll and Access Roads/267 to Northwyck Court. The path bridge over 267 is obviously the big ticket item.

I don't see any comment opportunities right now, but bike advocates should be ready to make their case for these items when the EA comes out.

The recently presented North Capitol Street Needs Assessment includes several ways to make North Capitol more bike-friendly, but they most involve how to get across North Capitol, not how to ride north-south on it.

The only "Bicycle Mobility Improvement" to make the list of top priorities was to add approach bike lanes and bike boxes at R Street. It was a low-cost item that could be done in "1 year +". That + might be doing a lot of work. R Street connects to the Metropolitan Branch Trail and the community wants the route made safer. R has a bike lane on it, but there's a 1/2 mile gap centered on North Capitol.

Other recommendations, listed in descending priority, were to:

Pursue the design and implementation of bicycle facilities along K Street NW/NE

Pursue the study, design, and implementation of bicycle facilities along Massachusetts Avenue NW/NE

Even though people asked for a bike lane on M Street to connect to the current bike lane on M at First, NE; the study didn't place one there, because the NoMa Bike Access study put the bike lane on K. Why not both? [R and K do, according to counts, have the most bike traffic now, possibly driven by existing bike facilities].

The study notes that the lack of bicycle facilities means that many cyclists use the sidewalks.

On Feb. 4th, Montgomery County DOT will host a public meeting on the Dixon Avenue Separated Bike Lanes, Silver Spring Secure Bike Parking Facility, and Cameron St to Planning Place Bikeway.

The Dixon Avenue Separated Bike lane is a two block long separated bike lane between Wayne and Ripley that will be installed just east of the Silver Spring Metro Station and MBT. The proposed design calls for a pair of one-way separated bike lanes on either side of the street. These bike lanes would be one-way bike lanes separated from traffic by a barrier located on either side of the street

The Silver Spring Secure Bike Parking Facility will be located in the base of Montgomery County parking garage found on the southeast corner of Bonifant Street and Dixon Avenue (where the parking symbol is in the map above). It will provide a secure location where cyclists can lock their bikes while commuting or visiting downtown Silver Spring. This will be similar to the bike and ride facility at College Park Metro and the Bikestation at Union Station.

A bike parking facility in the location of the transit station has been discussed for more than a decade, and at varying locations, but some of the justification for it may have just been overcome by events with the metro bike-on-rail rule change.

The third project to be discussed at the meeting is the two-way cycletrack being planned for the Fenton Street corridor from Cameron to Planning Place. The route is an extension of Fenton that currently serves as a partially closed one way alley. The cycletrack will run between the Montgomery County parking garage number 2 and the rear of the Sheraton Hotel. At Planning Place, the cycletrack will connect with the “Purple Pathway” leading to Woodland Drive

Rails-to-trails on Wednesday announced its vision for the Great American Bike Trail, a bike route connecting 4000 miles of rail-trail and stretching from Georgetown in Washington, DC to Cedar Falls, WA about 35 miles east of Seattle. Locally, the GABT uses the Capital Crescent Trail and the C&O Tow path.

"The Great American Rail-Trail is a bold vision—one that will take years to complete. The investment of time and resources necessary to complete this trail will be returned many times over as it takes its place among the country's national treasures," said Laughlin

The Great American Rail-Trail is a signature project of RTC and the most ambitious in its portfolio of TrailNation™ projects—the organization's initiative to encourage the rapid replication of regional trail networks across the country. The trail was first envisioned in the late 1980s by RTC co-founder David Burwell, and for decades has been an underpinning of the organization's strategy to create a nationwide network of public trails.

The GABT marks the third trans-national trail to pass through or into the DC area. Both the East Coast Greenway, running from Maine to Florida, and the American Discovery Trail, from the Delaware shore to San Francisco, pass through the District. The major difference between this trail from the ADT, is that this one would primarily connect rail trails and the ADT is much more likely to be on-road.

Interestingly, the western end of this trails ends shy of Seattle, but the railroad grade that it runs on there continues west. In fact there are two tracks from there. One becomes the Snoqualmie Valley Trail which ends in Duvall, WA though the ROW continues up to Monroe, WA. The other, after a 10+mile long gap, becomes the Cedar River Trail. That rail-trail ends in the Seattle suburb of Renton. It's unclear to me why the gap exists or why they stopped the trail where they did, but it means any future Mariners-Nationals World Series won't be called the Great American Bike Trail Series.

The legislative season has started in Virginia, and as always the Virginia Bicycling Federation is doing a great job of keeping people abreast of what is going on this year. And there are several bills that deal with road safety that should matter to cyclists, at the top of the list are bills that would ban the use of “handheld personal communication devices” by drivers.

Current law prohibits only the reading of any email or text message and manually entering letters or text in the device as a means of communicating. The bill expands the exemptions to include handheld personal communications devices that are used (i) for navigation or generating audio transmissions when the device is physically mounted to the vehicle; (ii) as an amateur radio or a citizens band radio; (iii) to activate, deactivate, or initiate a factory-installed feature or function on the vehicle; or (iv) for official Department of Transportation or traffic incident management services.

It seems like a common-sense thing, but a similar bill failed last year, so we'll see.

There's also a bill that would require a vehicle to stop and not pass a vehicle which is stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. This should help a cyclist in the crosswalk too (such as crossing a road on the W&OD Trail), but sometimes the law doesn't see it that way.

Somewhat related is the new "scooter" bill which has several parts relevanted to DoBi.

It would regulate scooters and motorized skateboards similarly to how bicycles are; for example allowing their operators to use hand signals and such, and most relevantly allowing scooters in the bike lane.

It would also prevent any local ordinance that prohibits "the parking of a bicycle, electric power-assisted bicycle, or motorized skateboard or scooter on any sidewalk" and it would add a provision that

No person shall park a bicycle, electric power-assisted bicycle, or motorized skateboard or scooter in a manner that impedes the normal movement of pedestrian or other traffic or where such parking is prohibited by official traffic control devices.

Finally, it would allow that

The governing body of any county, city, or town may require persons offering motorized skateboards or scooters, bicycles, or electric power-assited bicycles for hire to be licensed, provided that in the absence of any licensing ordinance or regulation a person may offer motorized skateboards or scooters, bicycles, or electric power-assisted bicycles for hire unless otherwise prohibited by law.

The bill was passed out of the sub-committee and on to the full House Transportation committee by a 7-3 vote after getting support from both Bird and Lime. Of local note:

law enforcement and other officials from Arlington, Alexandria, & Charlottesvile asked for the bill to be tabled until their in-progress Pilot Projects are completed and digested.

Back in 2017, DDOT prepared a Vision Zero corridor study of K St NE extending from 12th St NE to 1st St. NE. DDOT decided that it wanted to remove rush-hour restrictions on residential parking as part of a road diet and came up with four alternatives. Alternatives 1-3 put cyclists in shared lanes, but alternative 4 removed parking from one side to make bike lanes and in the underpass below the railroad tracks removed a lane of the road to create a cycletrack.

More than twenty area residents were present to voice their opinions on the bike and traffic study. They pointed to the impact of proposed changes – in particular the loss of parking and related access to homes on or near K Street NE for families, seniors and those with less mobility. Many said that insufficient study and data collection had been undertaken to approve the concept at this point.

Many residents said they felt that the convenience and safety of cyclists passing through their community was being prioritized over access to their homes by car and over resident safety. One pointed out that while a car had recently struck an adult with children at Sixth and K Streets NE, a pedestrian had also recently been attacked in the early morning hours at Second and K Streets NE. The resident argued that compelling residents to walk great distances between their homes and cars puts them in danger.

And DDOT said they were still in the design phase

Buck said the next step for the project was to produce a second design concept based on the additional information accumulated in public meetings and in data collection.

Well, that next step is over.

ANC 6C is holding a special meeting on Thursday, Jan 24 from 7-9pm at the Kaiser Permanente Capitol Hill Medical Center, 700 2nd St NE. At this meeting, DDOT's Emily Dalphy will present final draft plans for the K St. NE road diet (from 2nd to Florida Ave) including bike lanes (between 2nd & 6th NE) and possibly early concept plans for K st. protected bike lanes east of 2nd NE.

People who care about such a facility would do well to show up and voice their support. Or at least learn about it.

Work on the College Park Woods Connector Trail, an extension of the Anacostia Tributary Trails System, will begin next month and complete in early 2020 according to a recent update.

The College Park Woods Connector is a half-mile connector across University of Maryland land between the neighborhood of College Park Woods and the Paint Branch Trail. This trail project will link a residential community in the City of College Park with the University of Maryland campus and the Anacostia Tributaries Trail System. It will increase bicycle safety by providing a car-free bicycling and walking alternative to busy Metzerott Road and an at-grade crossing of University Boulevard.

The $1.3 million project will build easements across public institutions and private property, a boardwalk across wetlands, wayfinding signs and advanced-practice shared roadway markings to make the connection.

The Governors Highway Safety Association put out a report on Speeding and traffic safety entitled "Rethinking a Forgotten Traffic Safety Challenge". It's unclear who forgot that speeding was a traffic safety issue or how they remembered but the report does highlight one important fact that I think we all knew - speeding is one of the major causes of traffic death in DC. Speed-related crashes made up 55 percent of all motor-vehicle deaths in 2017. In Maryland and Virginia it was 29 and 26 percent respectively.

The media made much of the comparison aspect that labelled DC "2nd" in the nation for speed related deaths, but the comparison is largely meaningless. If DC got down to just one traffic death, but it was speed-related, we'd catapult to #1 on the list with 100%. Likewise we could increase all non-speed related crashes and move down the list while getting more dangerous. The states with the lowest rates of speeding deaths are Mississippi and Florida, both of which are among the least safe on a deaths/VMT measure. Whereas DC is 6th safest (As always, comparing DC to states has flaws).

The report also notes that the states don't have a uniform method for reporting crash causes "In GHSA’s survey of the states, respondents reported several inconsistencies across the country regarding ability to report speeding as a causative factor in a fatal crash." DC may report more speed-related crashes because we have so many more cameras per mile of road that our investigators can watch most crashes happen or about to happen and know that the driver was speeding. (And DC gets a lot safer on a Person-Mile-Travelled basis because so many people take transit, walk or bike). There are many possible reasons for the different reported numbers and it shouldn't be taken that DC is somehow uniquely dangerous.

But....It is useful to know that speeding plays a part in a majority of fatalities. If we're trying to reduce traffic deaths as part of Vision Zero it helps to know what is causing them. One reason our speeding deaths are so high is likely that drunk driving is very high. 70% of drivers that die in DC are above the legal limit, and when people drink and drive, they're more likely to speed. DC is an outlier as 70% is much higher than the rest of the country (North Dakota is 2nd at 49%), though again, there are reporting differences.

It should be no surprise that getting people to drive sober and getting them to slow down will go a long way to achieving Vision Zero. So will getting them to not drive at all.

Here's the other thing that the report says relevant to biking

Speeding-Related Crashes Involving Vulnerable Road UsersDifferential speeds in mixed traffic is a factor in the recent increase in pedestrian and bicycling crashes and fatalities (NCSA, 2018b). In fact, pedestrian fatalities are at highest levels recorded in more than two decades. Vehicle speeding seriously impacts pedestrian and bicyclist safety not only by increasing the chances of a crash, but also by increasing the risk of death when they are involved in a crash. A higher incidence of distraction and impairment, in addition to speeding and low lighting on roadways, were reported to be causation factors in crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists specifically during evening or nighttime hours.

Excessive vehicle speeds also have serious implications for bicyclists. The League of American Bicyclists attempted to track and analyze every bicyclist fatality in the U.S. between 2011 and 2013, finding that 44% of fatalities occurred on high-speed urban arterial roads (McLeod and Murphy, 2014).

A recent study from Texas A&M University found, “While high design speeds are viewed as desirable for motorist safety, they are not safe for pedestrians and bicyclists” (Essex et. al, 2017). In 2017, there were 783 bicyclists killed in traffic crashes in the United States (NCSA, 2018b). States reported that the increase in bicyclists and pedestrians on our roads calls for increased efforts to ensure the safety of all road users, including reducing incidence of speeding. Reducing speeding-related bicyclist fatalities by identifying countermeasures and implementing infrastructural improvements such as traffic calming measures and road diets is essential to improving overall road safety.

So DC is still relatively safe compared to other areas, primarily because so many passenger miles are traveled in something other than a car, but to make roads safer we need people to not drive drunk and to slow down. All of my most important Vision Zero thoughts are in that sentence.

One more thing:

A recent study ... showed that marijuana had no effect on the variability of speed. In fact, in the combined alcohol and marijuana condition, it appeared marijuana mitigated some of the effects found with alcohol by reducing the time spent above the speed limit. [Other studies in the field contradict that].

The county has an online survey, open until the 22nd, that they're asking people to fill out, so you should do that. That same day, they're going to host an open house on the update at Westover Branch Library from 6-7:30pm.

The MTP lays out six goals which are then modified specifically for cycling in the Bicycle Element. Those goals are

A. Provide an environment in which people of all ages and abilities can get places by bicycle safely and comfortably.B. Make all of Arlington accessible by bicycle using easy-to-follow, low-stress routes.C. Increase the mode share of bicycle travel, aiming to have the population of persons who bicycle for transportation be demographically similar to the population of Arlington overall.D. Provide an excellent trail system that serves the needs of people walking and bicycling for transportation and for recreation.E. Properly manage, maintain, and operate the infrastructure that supports bicycling in Arlington.F. Integrate bicycling into an efficient, sustainable and equitable transportation system.

Those goals result in more than a dozen policies and dozens of actions such as "Add contra-flow bicycle facilities to one-way streets, where safe and appropriate."

Finally, there are a list and maps of facilities.

I don't ride in Arlington as much as I used to, but I can't spot any holes in the plans. It's unfortunate that Arlington Cemetery and the Pentagon sit right where the bridges cross to DC, but that can hardly be fixed.